Really so? Have you been swarmed by drowners or ghouls in the early stages? Or by wyverns in the swamp? Or by wraiths and alghouls in the house with that special wine? :) Or by the Salamandra thugs in the hideout from Trade Quarter? Those situations are quite deadly.

My point is that in TW Geralt can easily outmaneuver all his enemies because he is faster and easier to control with a mouse. Dodging is mostly used as a last resort when cornered in tight spaces like houses or crypts. And I forgot to mention group styles. I did not got that far but I understand that in TW2 there is some kind of ability to attack multiple targets.

Avoiding damage is also important in TW but it is a lot easier. Of course, when you level up and get better armor, swords and attacks you can easily hold your ground when facing large mobs of lesser foes. And I suppose that in TW2 will happen the same.

I am not put off by auto targeting, I only say that you not only strike *opportunistically* but many times you strike *randomly*. This is why all this running and rolling hoping to separate an enemy from the group and pick it for an easy opportunistic strike.

Of course, I'm talking about how combat looks in the early stages before you get any special sword skills or magic abilities.

keeping the enemy in front of you My favorite topic. :) Now that you mentioned it, how are you supposed to keep the enemy in front of you when you can't walk backwards or sidestep? Someone said jokingly that in TW2 Geralt moves like Pac-Man. But, strangely enough, auto targeting works even when the enemies are behind. Oh well, I suppose CDP had to cut animations for some reason. Or maybe this is the way it was meant to be played to make it easier for buttons.

I continue to be flabbergasted by reviewers who are bothered by the doors.

Those are LOADING screens, disguised within the gameplay. They're not obstacles the designers intentionally put in to annoy you. They're there to hide a loading screen, and manage it quite well. To complain that you cannot walk through when NPCs do is just plain silly.

This is just like the elevator rides in ME1. They performed the same function, hiding the loading and (in ME1's case) even including some actual banter. But since there isn't a giant sign that says LOADING, people just think the developers were being douchebags and just put those in to annoy the players. In TW2 case, I bet those people just think the doors could remain open and we should just be able to walk through, never mind that what's behind the doors hasn't been fully loaded yet.

All I can think of is that the Loading Screen has been so hammered into gamers that they are willing to wait a few seconds in front of something that says LOADING, but if it is replaced with something that causes a similar delay but is disguised as something your character is doing (going down a long corridor, opening a door, etc.) then it becomes an annoyance the developers included in the game for no good reason.

You would think that people would be able to realize what is going on and appreciate the immersion this create. ME1's reactions proved that wrong, though... so maybe CDPR would have been wiser to show the loading animation at the same time as Geralt opens a door. Just to drive the obvious home.

Itkovian

I also like the bit about how "The way enemies behave runs utterly counter to the way Geralt fights."

Very pathetic. Oh noes, the enemies are doing THE RIGHT THING to kill Geralt. They DARE attack Geralt from behind! How bloody inconvenient!

And yet, never mind that a lot of Geralt's INITIAL abilities are about avoiding that: namely his ability to dodge, several of his signs. It's combat, not line dancing. The enemies try their best to kill you, and it's your job as player to figure out how not to get killed. The tools to do so are there, at your disposal. The learning curve might be steep (especially since the tooltips are very hard to read in the middle of combat), but this is not the same as saying the combat is poorly design. Never has L2P been as appropriate (first time I write that, in fact *grin*).

And drinking potions? I quote: "they can only be drank out of combat, which requires players to be clairvoyant and assume when they're needed." Bollocks!

Throughout the game, the devs have been very diligent in giving us hints as to when you should be drinking potions. If your medallion is vibrating as you approach an area or a door or a cave, might be time to buff up. If there's blood stains on the ground, or dead bodies scattered around, now might ALSO be a good moment. If you're about to confront an antagonist,, good time to drink too.

You don't need to be the bloody Kwisatz Haderach in order to determine when you should drink potions. The game supplies plenty of hints throughout all of it. If are too daft, or otherwise refuse, to take the hint then you will pay for it when you continue without buffing up. Why is it that now games should force the player to rely on his own wit and intellect? It seems that if a game requires the player to make a judgement call on his/her own, then it is the game's fault when the player makes the wrong call.

This is not to say the review doens't make some good points, specifically regarding the menus and some of the context sensitive actions, but the meat of it is entirely ridiculous.

I mean, I understand the school of game design about holding the player's hand, slowly easing him into the complexity of the game, and making enemies fight in ways just to make this more "fun". AC2 did it marvelously well. But if the outcome is that players can't handle a game that does not compromise and forces the player to actually do the work himself and rely on his own intellect for certain things, then I am not sure if it is that good of a design.

No wonder simulators are in such decline in the west (speaking as a Canadian). There's a genre in which hand holding is basically impossible, where the players must challenge themselves in order to become proficient (usually over months of effort). And now we end up with people who cannot accept a game that does not spoon feed everything to the player, and has enemies that actually feel like they are out to kill you instead of being extras whose purpose is to die gloriously... and we get reviews like these.

I mean, a better tutorial would probably be in order, and is clearly mandatory before a console port. But I despair to see what such excessive hand holding is leading to, gamers who will throw tantrums instead of accepting a challenge and rising to meet it.

Itkovian

Thread is TL;DR. But Destructoid has a tendency to rate popular RPG games low. I guess they do it for the page hits.

Remember Mass Effect? 7.0 http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-review-mass-effect-56046.phtml

Dragon Age: Origins? 7.5 http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dragon-age-ii

Dragon Age II? 7.0 http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dragon-age-ii

OTOH, Mass Effect II got a 10! :D Guess it had enough of the *boom* factor for dtoid. ;-)

CDP DEFENDS WITCHER 2difficulty.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-24-cd-projekt-defends-witcher-2-difficulty

I find it hilarious that people these days can't play difficult game anymore.
Normal on Witcher 2 means "HARD" on other games.

That would be Deadly Premonition, I think? For the XBOX 360. Never played the game myself.

This thread is still running?

Short version:

1). He troll
2). He lack common sense. He lack functioning brain. He not like thinking.

End of story. As others have said everything from the potions to combat, the guy is just an imbecile who for the first time in his gaming had to use common sense and his brain. Unfortunately he lacked both and just raged with this pathetic blog.

I agree, this is a spiteful review. But the real problem is the way Geralt moves, he does turn his back to attackers a lot because he is unable to back away or side step. IMO this is the single most annoying and stupid thing about combat. It is even obvious from combat videos.

Have you not discovered the dodge key? I cant fathom any other reason for this statement. There may not be FPS style strafing, but he can reposition to the side or rear quickly and effortlessly.

The dodge can be talented up to 200% increase. Thats a lot of movement when all someone might want to do is sidestep or take a few steps back. Having this ability would be a nice feature, and there is no adequate compensation for it in game. I still think the combat is awesome, but that is a small yet legitimate flaw.

And don't say "then don't talent it" because it is a great talent for various bosses and fights, and even the standard dodge is still a longer distance than a few steps to the side or to the back.

What are you talking about. Are you talking about when Geralt meditates?

Jim Sterling eh? Well.... there is nothing more to add to it... So called "professional reviewers" like Mister Sterling always make games look bad, especially when he is too dumb to use his brain.

In that case.. I only have 3 words to say to Mr Sterling:

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!!!

Well, I clicked hard mode when I fired up the game. Turns out the game is pretty hard, what´s wrong with that? People have grown too accustomed to being able to play through an entire game with 1 to 2 deaths. That´s boring. I´d rather fail at something difficult than succeed at something trivial.

I can't take Destructoid reviews seriously. LOL he gave Fable 3 4/10 and Kane and Lynch 2 1/10.

Neither of those games were good though.

Seems to me like the guy saw The Witcher 2 had generally excellent reviews an thought, "Hey, I want to drive traffic to my site, let's give a 9/10 game a 6/10 score!!"